


let's find the place where happiness begins

by piginawig



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Bisexual Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Fix-It, Fluff, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Mentions of Sex, not quite established relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:23:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piginawig/pseuds/piginawig
Summary: After Eddie survives Neibolt, he and Richie have a few things to discuss.





	let's find the place where happiness begins

**Author's Note:**

> This is short and fluffy because they deserve it.
> 
> Warning for Richie and Eddie's language, because they are Richie and Eddie.
> 
> (title from "only human" by the jonas brothers)

“How fucking far is it?” Eddie grumped from the passenger seat. His knees were bent, feet on the seat, even though he was a fully grown adult.

“Like, twenty more minutes, dude,” Richie answered, flicking his blinker on and turning left. “We left the restaurant five minutes ago, you’re the most impatient person I’ve ever met –“

“Excuse me? _I’m_ impatient? Who literally stopped mid-battle with a fuckin’ demon alien monster clown because he just _had_ to kiss me right then?”

“How many times do I have to say it, _we could’ve died!_” Richie retorted, not for the first time in the last six hours. “Besides, if I hadn’t done it then, I probably never would’ve done it, so. You should be thanking me for putting the monster-fighting-adrenaline to good use.”

Eddie rolled his eyes and grinned, looking over at Richie, watching in fascination as the streetlights lit up his face. He remembered how often he’d stare at Richie’s profile when they were teenagers, how he could get so caught up in how beautiful his best friend was that he’d lose track of everything happening around him. Back then, when Richie glanced at him and caught him staring, he’d jerk his head in the opposite direction, pretending to be busy with something else. Now, when Richie caught his eye as they stopped at a red light, he just kept staring.

“You’re looking at me funny,” Richie said, brows furrowing. He turned back to the road as the light changed to green.

“I’m not looking at you funny, I’m just looking at you,” Eddie told him.

“Okay,” Richie said slowly, confusion evident in his voice. “But why?”

Eddie wondered why he was in love with a fucking idiot. “Because I like looking at you, dumbass.”

Richie didn’t answer for a minute, and Eddie watched with glee as his cheeks and the tips of his ears turned pink.

“Do you remember – I mean, when we were kids, I used to –“ Richie stopped, seemed to think for a moment, then continued, “Sometimes I thought you were – when I would look at you, you’d turn away really fast and I thought… Maybe you were… Looking at me, then. I – Were you?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said easily. He let his eyes drift down Richie’s arm to his hand, white knuckled on the steering wheel. He reached over and softly laid his hand on his tense forearm, causing Richie’s breath to hitch. Eddie slowly dragged his fingers down his arm through dark hair until his hand was covering Richie’s. At first he just let his hand rest there, and he watched Richie’s face to make sure he wasn’t crossing a line. They’d only kissed the one time, in It’s lair after Richie had fallen from the deadlights, and the most they’d really talked about anything was through jokes and body language, pressed up against each other in the restaurant like neither wanted to be too far from the other. Eddie thought this might be the most serious moment they’d had since they’d left Neibolt.

Richie seemed okay, though, so he rubbed the back of his hand with a calloused thumb, feeling the immediate affect of Richie’s hand relaxing. Richie let his hand fall from the steering wheel, like he trusted that Eddie would catch it – and he did, twining their fingers together and resting them on his thigh. He could feel Richie’s eyes on him – short glances, the car was still moving – but he couldn’t stop staring at the way their hands fit together. Richie’s was bigger and rougher than Eddie’s, and his skin was the slightest bit darker. His nails weren’t neat the way Eddie’s were but Eddie didn’t mind, because his own hands were calloused and scratched up from the last 48 hours. He felt safe and protected, but he also felt strong and capable, and he’d never felt both at the same time before.

“Did you…” Richie’s voice trailed off. Eddie tore his eyes from their hands to see Richie was still blushing. He was staring straight ahead. “When you were a kid and you were… Looking. Was it – were you looking… like _that_?”

Eddie frowned. Of course it was _like that_, what other way does a person gaze lovingly at someone? But the nerves Richie was feeling were palpable, and Eddie didn’t want to antagonize right now – it was something he loved about the two of them. They both knew when it was time to be serious.

“Yeah,” he repeated. He watched Richie swallow, losing himself in the movement of his throat and momentarily overcome with the need to taste. He blinked and cleared his throat. “That’s always how I’ve looked at you.”

“_Oh_,” Richie choked. Eddie squeezed his hand. He could tell Richie was trying not to cry. “You have really bad taste, then.”

Surprised, Eddie snorted.

Richie continued. “I mean, first me at 13, then Myra, now me at 40 – you know you could raise your standards a bit, right?”

“I was never…” he bit his lip, this time looking away from Richie and out the window of the moving car. He could tell they were getting closer to the hotel. “I don’t think I was ever actually attracted to Myra. Physically, at least. Yeah, we had sex, but it was… I don’t know. I never understood what all the fuss was about.”

“If you don’t understand what the fuss is about, then it probably has something to do with who you’re doing it with,” Richie said quietly. "Or even the gender of the person you're doing it with. I've never... with a guy... but, even when I wasn't in love with a girl it was still good. Maybe you just... Don't like it. With women."

Eddie closed his eyes and sighed. “You’re probably right.”

“What are you going to do about…” Richie trailed off, unsure how to phrase it.

Eddie looked back to Richie. “I already left.”

“What?”

“Before I – When I was leaving…” he breathed in deeply. The memory still made his chest feel tight with guilt. “I packed so much, Rich. That’s why I’ve got – I’ve got my whole life in those two suitcases. I told her we’d talk about going forward with the divorce once I got back from – from what I needed to do, but that I wasn’t – I wasn’t coming home.”

Richie was quiet after the admission, and Eddie began to worry he’d read the situation wrong, that his leaving his wife wasn’t what Richie wanted to hear. But then Richie was pulling off the main road, and in the dark it took a second for Eddie to recognize where they were going.

“Rich, what are we – The hotel’s like, two minutes down the road – “

“I need to show you something,” Richie said, parking in front of the kissing bridge. He left the car running but climbed out of the car, rushing around to open the passenger door and to physically pull Eddie from his seat. “I – I mean, you said you looked at me. When we were younger, right? I just. You should know it wasn’t just you. And I wasn’t gonna – I didn’t want to be that guy who goes and fuckin’… confesses his feelings for someone who’s already married so I wasn’t gonna show you, but.”

Eddie’s heart was beating fast, and he was looking at the bridge, one particular marking, even as Richie kept talking. He knelt down and let his fingers follow the harsh lines carved into the wood. He felt Richie kneel beside him.

“When?”

“That summer,” Richie whispered, like he was embarrassed. “Pennywise taunted me.. about liking boys. And then you broke your arm and everybody was fighting and we weren’t allowed to see you. And even though I’d kind of… Maybe, _wondered_ before. That was when I knew. ‘Cause I wasn’t talking to any of our other friends, either. But you were the one that I really missed.”

Eddie let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. He blinked back the tears that stung his eyes.

“And I couldn’t see you, and I knew I couldn’t tell you, or anyone – I thought if anyone knew they’d hate me. And… And I hated me, too. For liking you. I wanted it to go away and I thought… maybe it wasn’t going away because it was just stuck inside my head, you know? If I got it our somehow, it would go away. So I did… This.”

“Did it work?” Eddie asked quietly, still tracing their initials.

“No.”

“I’m sorry you were so scared,” he murmured, turning his body to face Richie, who was staring at the grass beneath their feet.

“I’m sure you were, too,” Richie said with a shrug.

“Not really,” Eddie said truthfully. “Not of that. I didn’t think – I thought that was just how best friends felt about each other. Even as an adult I convinced myself that – I dunno, that everybody had thoughts like that, everybody has dreams sometimes, you know? I never let myself think… Maybe this means something. I didn’t date and I told myself it was because I was busy taking care of Ma, and then after she died I was busy working - not that I just… wasn’t interested. And then I met Myra and she kind of – she took the reigns, I guess. And I could have sex with her, and I told myself everybody’s lying, when they talk about how great sex is. I’m not the only one who closes his eyes the whole time, blocks out the noise and empties his mind. That’s – that’s normal, right?”

Eddie’s voice was shaking, and he’d dropped fully to the ground, back leaning against the wooden post of the bridge, R + E right next to his head. Richie sat beside him, wrapped an arm around his shoulder and pulled him closer. Eddie sighed and fell into the embrace, pulling his legs up so his knees were bent over Richie’s legs and his feet were on the ground. He could hear the rapid rate of Richie’s heartbeat against his cheek, could feel Richie’s hands, big and strong and rough, rubbing up and down his spine.

“I convinced myself for so long that everything was normal,” he whispered into Richie’s chest. “I wasn’t scared because I didn’t even let myself think it – until I…”

He took a deep breath and exhaled shakily, Richie’s scent overwhelming him. He closed his eyes, let one hand fist in Richie’s shirt to ground himself.

“Until I saw you again. And it was like – I realized so much during that dinner, things kept coming back to me, things from the last 27 years started making sense. Why I spent hours on YouTube watching your shitty comedy, even though somehow I knew you didn’t actually write it. Why every time I dreamed about sex it was – it was someone taller than me, with dark hair and blue eyes and there was always a name on the tip of my tongue but I could never remember when I woke up and – “ he curled up even more into Richie’s embrace. “I just knew. It wasn’t even scary, it was just like… Duh. Like, how could I have been so stupid?”

He sighed at the feeling of lips against his forehead.

“I think your shitty mom probably had something to do with it,” Richie said, his voice quiet but still with an edge.

Eddie huffed a short laugh. “You’re probably right. But still – I’m sorry you were so scared about it as a kid.”

“Fuck, Eds.” Richie shook his head. “It scares me as an adult, too. Pennywise taunted me with the same shit this time around. Except this time he knew to use you-“

His voice stopped suddenly, and Eddie lifted his head to see him staring into the distance.

“Holy fuck,” he muttered.

“What?”

“He – He _did_ use you against me when we were kids,” he said. “The first time we went to Neibolt. He lured me into that room with the clowns and the coffin, he – I saw you, you called my name and I followed you – and that’s, that’s how he had us all separated, I couldn’t get to you quick enough because he tricked me, and then he tried to kill you – “

“Hey,” Eddie soothed, running a hand through Richie’s hair and bringing him back to the present. “Hey. It’s over now, yeah? My arm healed up nicely, even after you made it worse by shoving it back into place, and I didn’t get eaten. We all – It tricked all of us. We can’t feel guilty about any of it anymore. Just gotta move forward, yeah?”

He wiped under Richie’s eyes, ignoring the flush in his cheeks. Richie opened his eyes and he was so close, his eyes were so blue – they were always bluer, darker, after he cried, and Eddie loved every shade of blue they could become – so he leaned in until their lips met. It was a soft kiss, nothing more than the press of lips.

“We’re both a little bit fucked up over this, aren’t we?” Richie asked with a wet laugh.

Eddie nodded. “Just a little. We’ll work on it.”

“Work on it together?” The hopefulness was clear in Richie’s voice.

“We’ll work on it together,” Eddie agreed. “You got enough room for me at your place in LA?”

“Really?” Richie choked, and Eddie’s heart ached at the vulnerability in his eyes. He knew being vulnerable – appearing _weak_ – was something Richie hated.

“Of course, where else would I go?” Eddie said like it was obvious.

“I’m sure you could very easily find a boyfriend way hotter than me,” he answered, trying and failing to sound casual.

Eddie rested their foreheads together, his hand curling around Richie’s neck. Goosebumps trickled down his spine as he felt Richie’s hot breath on his lips. “Rich, I’m not going to find a boyfriend hotter than you, okay?” Before he could get an answer, he closed the short distance between their lips, sucking Richie’s bottom lip between his own before pulling back. “I want _you_. I wanted you then, I wanted you when I didn’t even fucking remember you, and I want you now. And I’ll want you tomorrow and the day after that.” He dragged his lips down, over stubble until he could press an open mouth kiss to the underside of his jaw. He could hear the quiet whimper from Richie’s mouth.

He lifted his head back up so he was looking Richie in the eye, breathless from the way he was being looked at and aware that Richie didn't seem to be ready to say anything back.

“I just admitted a lot,” Eddie mumbled, still looking at Richie and feeling a little embarrassed. “Um, it’s your turn. Please.”

His stomach knotted in the best way when the corners of Richie’s lips quirked upward.

“You’re gonna move to LA with me,” Richie breathed. Eddie nodded, aware of the blush on his cheeks. “We’re gonna wake up together and go to bed together and have breakfast together and kiss each other goodbye at the door and – “

“Sounds very domestic,” Eddie smiled, leaning back into Richie’s embrace. “I could definitely be into domestic.”

“I want whatever you want,” Richie admitted. “As long as I get you. I thought – for so long I thought being a comedian was the only thing I really wanted, and I never understood why I felt so empty once I’d gotten it.”

“Things are gonna be good now,” Eddie promised, pressing a kiss to Richie’s cheek.

“Guess you’re stuck with me now, huh?”

Eddie pinched his arm. “Stop saying shit like that, I don’t like it.”

Richie frowned. “Shit like what?”

“You’re so self-deprecating. You’re not – It’s not a burden to be with you, okay? I’ve waited my whole fucking life to be with you, dipshit. I wouldn’t do that if I thought you weren’t attractive, or if I felt like I was just stuck with you.” Eddie didn’t realize he was frowning until Richie’s thumb softly rubbed between his eyes. He softened his brows, took a deep breath to relax. “I love you, and I want this. And if you keep talking shit about my boyfriend I’m gonna have to fight you.”

Richie laughed, letting his head fall until their foreheads were pressed together again.

“Who knew you were such a fuckin’ romantic, Eds?” He said, smiling softly. Eddie could tell he was trying to make it sound like a joke. “Really know how to sweep a guy off his feet.”

“I swept you off your feet when I was an annoying 13 year old gremlin,” Eddie pointed out, leaving Richie cackling.

“You were so fucking cute back then.”

“Oh, and I’m not cute now?”

“No,” Richie said, ignoring the offended shock on Eddie’s face. “Now you’re really fucking hot.”

“I – _wha_ – Shut _up_, I’m not,” Eddie blushed, glancing away.

“Oh, who’s being self-deprecating now?”

Eddie rolled his eyes but couldn’t keep his smile from growing. “I just – No one’s ever said that before. About me. So.”

“I’m sorry – “ Richie shook his head, eyes wide in shock. “You’ve been walking around New York City looking like _this_, and not a single fucking person has told you how hot you are? Your fuckin’ wife has seen you _naked_ and hasn’t told you how hot you are?”

Eddie glared at the mention of his wife.

“Sorry, sorry, no wife talk. But seriously. You have been seen naked. And not immediately told how hot you are. It’s a travesty and it’s baffling and I don’t understand it.”

Eddie could feel his blush spreading down his chest. He lightly shoved at Richie. “Shut up.”

“Fuck that,” Richie said, using all his strength to stand and pull Eddie up with him. “Let’s get back to the hotel so I can take one for the team.”

“Take one for the team?” Eddie asked as he opened the passenger door. Richie looked at him with a smirk over the roof of the car and he regretted asking.

“No one’s ever seen you naked and told you how hot you are,” Richie explained with a shrug. “I’m going to remedy that.” 


End file.
